


The Pain is Secondary

by RosYourBoat



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: BDSM, M/M, Mystery, Rough Sex, Sub Jane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:17:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosYourBoat/pseuds/RosYourBoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane and the crew set out to investigate the death of a prominent member of society, whose last known location and witness happened to be a Mistress at a local high-end BDSM club. Unbeknownst to anyone--or so Jane thought--Jane is also a regular customer of the club. </p><p>This fic is incomplete and will remain so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pain is Secondary

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my recent excavation and expunction of all of my old fics from my hard drive to an online form, where they can be held as an indelible and inescapable memento of my past obsessions. These fics are all unbeta'd and heretofore unseen by anyone but me. I hope someone else feels some of the enjoyment I received from writing them.
> 
> "The Pain is Secondary" was written in February of 2012 and is incomplete. It will likely remain so, though I do feel a strong connection to this fic and Jane's characterization in it.

“Man, if I had a nickel for every time we had to bust one of these BDSM joints,” Cho muttered as he drove through the light traffic of a high-end, but discreet, business sector on a Tuesday morning.

“You wouldn’t even break a dollar, so shut up and stop whining,” Lisbon said, but there was no real heat behind it. She was too busy trying to figure out how to access her e-mail account through her newly upgraded phone.

“Not really to your taste, Agent Cho?” Jane teased lightly with a grin from where he was scrunched in the back seat with Rigsby and Van Pelt.

“The only ‘scene’ Cho gives is when he runs out of hair gel in the morning,” Rigsby snickered.

“Hey man, I don’t care what goes on in these places—as long as there’s nothing illegal—” Cho added hurriedly with a glance to his boss in the passenger seat, “I mean, to each his own, but the least these people can do is play a straight game when we come knocking on their door. But no, they’re always hemming and hawing and beating around the bush, like we don’t know what goes on in there.”

“Well, it _is_ a very tight-knit community, with lots of nuances that aren’t immediately obvious to outsiders,” Jane said. At the glances he received, he smiled innocently. “…I’ve heard.”

“Well, it’s not something I entirely agree with,” Van Pelt said with a little frown. “I understand that people do it for different reasons, but I just think there are healthier ways to deal with your issues than regularly getting yourself beaten and tortured.”

Rigsby and Cho started to say something at the same time; Rigsby, as per usual, eager to agree with whatever the beautiful redhead said, and Cho responding with what appeared to be a joke couched in an informative rejoinder. Jane said nothing. Before either of them could sort out who would speak first, Lisbon spoke up, raising her head from her phone and looking annoyed.

“Look, we’re not here for a high school ethics debate, OK? We’re here to talk to anyone who may have been in contact with Philip Johnstead past 7:30 last night. If he _did_ come here last night, then whoever saw him could be the last person to’ve seen him alive.”

“Or killed him,” Cho muttered. Lisbon glared at each of her team members in turn; Cho, Van Pelt, Rigsby, and, finally, Jane.

“Maybe,” she admitted. “So keep an eye out, but in this country we believe in innocent until proven guilty, so _no_ insinuations, _no_ passing judgment, and _no_ snide remarks. And _you_ ,” she pointed at Jane. “ _You_ , don’t pull any of your funny stuff in there; we don’t need to scare these people into clamming up any more than they’re going to, anyway.”

Jane raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands defenselessly. Then he mimed zipping his lips closed and throwing away the key with a devilish grin and a wink. Lisbon rolled her eyes.

“It’s kind of early in the day to talk to people at a club like this, isn’t it?” Van Pelt asked as Cho found a parking spot and pulled in.

“BDSM clubs are one of the few places in the sex industry that have normal office hours as well as night hours,” Cho replied. “We once busted a CEO for money laundering who would go to his club every week at 10:00, Monday morning, like clockwork. It was like a ritual.”

“I guess it’s one way to shake the Monday morning blues,” Rigsby said, stretching to work the kinks out of his back once they had all piled out of the car. The building they had pulled up in front of was large; at least twice the size of the two connecting buildings on both sides, and it was made of beautiful white stone. Stately Doric columns flanked the dark but elegantly understated door and a discreet plaque inlaid to the right of the door stated “The Dionysus Club, Please Enter” followed by the address.

Jane gave a low whistle. “This doesn’t look like a dingy warehouse basement with cheap black curtains and chains screwed into the ceiling.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not exactly in the ghetto, are we?” Rigsby said. “This is a high class place; only the wealthy and powerful with plenty of money to throw around come to this place. Even I was impressed the last time I came here; it looks more like a business retreat or a spa than a hardcore sex club.”

They entered a waiting area with a thick, plush rug and chairs on either side of the hall leading up to a concierge desk. The tone of the club was immediately evident; the décor and coloring gave the room dark, intimate feel, and as the door leading to the outside closed, any sound of the world outside was cut off, hinting at soundproofed interiors. Here in this outer room, soft classical music played while Lisbon approached the desk and pulled out her badge as she talked with the pretty, business-like woman behind the desk.

Two empty doorways on opposite sides of the room in front of the desk led deeper into the building, but instead, they were directed up the staircase next to the desk, where the hallway split to lead to more rooms. However, overlooking the entry hall, there were several offices, one of which belonged to the daytime manager—and part owner—of the club, Diana Green.

As an observer, Jane was allowed to sit in on the interviews that followed, but found that he was little help this time around. Diana directed them to Angela Bird, who was Peter Johnstead’s regular Mistress—Johnstead, too, appeared to follow a schedule, though it was limited to only about once or twice a month—who had, indeed, “disciplined” the late Johnstead from 8:00 to 8:30 last night and happened to be there this morning.

“It was a really strange session,” Angela admitted. She was a curvy woman of average height and blazing red hair, and she wore a silky bathrobe over what was, no doubt, her working attire. “First of all, it was really late notice; we usually require at least three days’ notice for an appointment and he’s never had a problem with it, but Julie—the receptionist on night shift—said that he was really insistent when he called last night. I was already there with another client, so when she called me, I told her to go ahead and send him over. I don’t mind bending the rules a bit for ‘emergencies’ if I’m already working, and I could’ve used the late-notice penalty charge.”

Jane poked around the room, bored. She may have indeed been the last person to see Peter Johnstead alive, but he could already tell that she wasn’t involved in his death. Lisbon seemed to have come to the same conclusion.

“You mentioned that it was a strange session,” she prompted. “What makes you say that?”

“Well,” Angela said slowly, twisting a piece of her fire engine red hair around her wickedly long-nailed finger, “he was nervous, or something. It usually doesn’t take long for him to get into subspace—I mean, really sink deep into the submission—but this time, he kept fighting it. He fidgeted, missed orders the first time; I could just tell his mind was elsewhere, you know? So, I thought that this was the ‘emergency,’ he really needed to get his mind off of something, so I settled in for a long session—anywhere between one or two hours. But we’d barely gotten started, just slapped him around a bit, got him in restraints, nothing new or different, and then before I knew it, he’d safeworded out and was out of here like a bat outta hell.”

“Did he say anything, or give any indication of what might be bothering him?” Lisbon asked.

Angela twisted her mouth up in an amused, but ironic grimace. “Not exactly my job,” she said. “People come here to _avoid_ talking. But I did think it was strange that he wouldn’t even tell me why he safeworded; I mean, it’s standard to go over rules and boundaries whenever a client safewords, to make sure neither of us goes too far, but he just kept saying that he needed to go and it wasn’t my fault. He didn’t even stay for aftercare.”

“Aftercare?”

“You know, taking care of the sub while they’re winding down, making sure they aren’t hurt—badly—and that they’re out of subspace, that sort of thing. It’s standard procedure, and a really important part of safe play, besides. To be honest, I was sort of worried about him when he ran off like that.”

Ultimately, Angela had little to contribute. There were several more interviews that were equally unsuccessful, and it was a slightly disappointed team that reassembled in the entry hall—Jane stopped chatting up the receptionist with an unapologetic grin at Lisbon’s exasperated look—and trooped out into the car.

“Well, it doesn’t look like we have an obvious lead on our killer yet,” Lisbon said, “But this _does_ seem to be the last place Johnstead was seen alive. Cho, you and Van Pelt go interview the night receptionist that took Johnstead’s call. Rigsby, you and I will be tracking Johnstead’s route from here; his body was found less than a mile from here. We still have about one hour unaccounted for between when he left the club and his time of death, maybe he got there on foot.”

Everyone made noises of acknowledgement. Jane raised a hand. “Uh, what about me?”

Lisbon sighed. “You… go do whatever it is you do when you’re not with us. I honestly don’t think there’s much you can do on this one, Jane, but we’ll let you know if something comes up.”

“Yeah, OK.” Jane shrugged. “Can’t win all of ‘em.”

As they got closer to the station, he spoke up again. “By the way, why were you at that club before? It looks about as clean and aboveboard as you can get for a BDSM club.”

“Blackmail,” said Lisbon. “Always a common risk in the sex industry, no matter how high-class the club. It was actually one… uh, patron blackmailing another, and it really didn’t work out for him. The guy being blackmailed was actually smart enough to come to us and the club worked with us to catch the guy—on a strictly mum basis, of course.”

“It was a very, uh, _enlightening_ case,” Rigsby added.

“It was Rigsby’s first BDSM case; I don’t think he stopped staring or blushing the entire time,” Cho said dryly. “’I thought his head was going to explode.” The friendly ribbing continued as they reached the station and everyone went their separate ways. Jane stood for a moment in their empty office, a little nonplussed, before shrugging and sauntering out of the building.

He went to the park and made a call. He had taken on a small, private case just two days ago that he could finish up without any trouble in his free time, and feeding the ducks helped him think. He imagined he looked as incongruous as always in his pale suit and waistcoat, looking as though he had just come from a wedding or other formal event, but which he wore as comfortably as a pair of well-worn jeans.

He stopped on a bridge overlooking the small pond, leaned his forearms on the railing, and looked down at the ducks loitering on the water beneath him. A small smile passed over his face when he thought back over his morning. He had been surprised when they had gone to the Dionysus club, but not alarmed. The workers were usually discreet enough not to show any signs of recognition when they met a client outside of a session. He had managed to give Diana a conspiratorial smile and a wink behind Lisbon’s back and he had only known the day receptionist by sight, so he wasn’t worried about his coworkers finding out about his particular brand of “therapy.” He wasn’t ashamed of it, but it would inevitably lead to awkwardness if they knew about it.

He made a mental note to set up another appointment soon, even though he had had his last session only a week ago. There hadn’t been a sign or even a whiff of a lead on Red John in months, and the frustration was getting to him. He knew from harsh experience over the past few years that it was best to release the stress and tension more often rather than let it build up and make him explode.

He checked his watch. Almost time. Looking around casually, he spotted a man in his late-thirties discretely following a woman jogging through the park. There was his man. Balling up his mostly empty bag of breadcrumbs, Jane tossed it in a garbage can at the end of the bridge as he casually began following the man himself.

By nightfall, he had finished his private case—the woman’s husband had indeed been following her because he thought she was having an affair, and now they had an appointment to start couple’s counseling for the next week—and he tried killing time as much as possible before returning to his empty, cold house. As he laid on the thin, bare mattress beneath the face drawn in his dead family’s blood, Jane closed his eyes and imagined sinking deeply into subspace, where he could pretend that his family was happy and whole, and all traces of Red John had been wiped from existence.

The next morning, he made an emergency appointment at the Dionysus Club.

He sat in a plush chair in the waiting room, trying to keep his knees from bouncing in agitation while he waited. At the click of heels crossing the marble floor between the stairs and the rug of the waiting room, he looked up and saw Diana approaching him with a smile. He stood up to greet her and she grasped his hand warmly.

“Patrick, hello,” she said in her rich, low voice. “You have been showing up most unexpectedly this week.”

“Diana,” he responded, letting her sit first before retaking his seat. He mustered up his charming smile for her. “Trust me, it was as unexpected for me as it was for you. I appreciate you and your staff’s… discretion at my surprise appearance.”

“Well, we would hardly be the best if we couldn’t keep our mouths shut,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She leaned in closer and touched his shoulder, lowering her voice. “Patrick, is there something else I should know about what the police were asking about yesterday? I’m not accusing you of anything, of course, but you returning so soon after we answered all of your questions…”

“I understand,” Jane said, taking her hand in his and meeting her eyes steadily to assure her of his honesty. “I promise that I’m not here on any kind of police business. I know you’ve helped the police in the past and we would tell you— _I_ would tell you—if anything official was going to happen.”

Diana let out a sigh of relief. “I believe you. You know that I would be happy to help the police—we are nothing if not a respectable, law-abiding, _legal_ business—but you know that it would make some of our more… illustrious clients nervous if there was too much police activity.”

Jane smiled. “Well, I assure you that this is a completely… personal visit. I’ve been getting lost in my head too often lately and last night was especially bad.”

“Of course, of course, no need to explain yourself,” she assured him hastily. “I’m sorry to take up your time. Now, unfortunately, we weren’t able to get your usual Dom here on such short notice, but we have one on hand that we think will suit you very well. He’s new, but we haven’t heard a complaint yet.”

She winked at him and he nodded with a smile. He wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected to get his regular Dom, who went by Dave but whose real name was Jared, who had a girlfriend and a little girl and was going to school and he shouldn’t know these things about him but he couldn’t help seeing it and that’s why he always asks to be blindfolded but it didn’t always help because he couldn’t stop being who he was, no matter how much he wanted to, not until he was deep into subspace and that was why he did this, that was why he craved it and sometimes he thought that if he didn’t get it then he was going to be crushed under the weight of his own mind and guilt.

“I understand.” Was what he said instead. “It’s no problem.”

He was led to a different room than he was used to, although it had the same general accruements; bed, box of toys, swing, padded mats and pillows. Nothing too special, since Jane never asked for anything special. There was a black leather collar, leather cuffs, and a blindfold laid out on the foot of the bed. He removed his clothes slowly, methodically, down to his black boxer briefs and carefully folded them and placed them in a chain in the corner. He tied the blindfold around his head and attached one cuff to his left wrist and held his arms behind his back, leaving the other to be attached by the Dom. He left the collar on the bed, preferring the Dom to place it himself.

When the door opened, Jane was standing in front of the bed, feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind him, and head bowed in a standard submissive stance. The door closed after a pause and the Dom strode forward. Long, confident stride, Jane’s mind couldn’t help but notice, with a heavy tread. Most likely larger than Jared, who was built much like Jane himself. The man came to a stop close to Jane, his presence looming next to him, and the air he brought with him smelled of smoke and leather. Hand-rolled shag tobacco, Jane thought. Interesting choice.

“Well, well, this _is_ a treat,” the man’s voice was low and husky and sent a shiver up Jane’s spine. His voice came from above Jane’s head. Yep, definitely bigger than Jared. A wide hand cupped his cheek and smoothed down to grasp his chin, tilting his head up. A surprisingly thin, callused thumb slid gently over Jane’s full lips and then again, roughly. Jane let his lips part and his breath come faster, feeling his heart rate increase at the tension that filled the room. The Dom took the opportunity to insinuate his thumb between Jane’s lips and stroke over his tongue. Jane automatically sucked it in and nibbled around the knuckle a little, letting himself fall a little deeper into his body and out of his mind with the rhythmic motions.

“Oh yeah,” the Dom rumbled, raking a hand through Jane’s thick hair to grasp at the back of his neck while Jane continued to suck. “I can already tell that I’ll be putting that sweet mouth to good use, gorgeous.” His hand slid to the front of Jane’s neck and down his chest to tweak a nipple. Jane inhaled sharply but was careful not to bite down in reaction. “Good,” the Dom praised, removing his thumb and swiping it over Jane’s reddening lips.

The Dom took a step back and moved behind Jane. He fastened the other cuff around Jane’s wrist and placed a small set of keys in Jane’s hand that he could drop in the place of a safeword if he couldn’t speak. Jane clutched them tightly. The Dom then fastened the collar around Jane’s throat, stroking the soft skin there with apparent regret before locking it away. With the click of the fastener, Jane felt his world shrink a little smaller. The thump of bass music in the room to the left became fainter as his awareness of his own body and the Dom’s increased.

“You may call me Master, sir, or Damon, if you must speak,” the Dom, Damon, said as he worked. “Otherwise, all I wanna hear out of that cocksucking mouth of yours is you screaming for more.”

“Yessir, Captain, sir, whatever Your Majesty desires,” Jane quipped with a smile. It was cheeky, he _knew_ it was, but he wasn’t getting down into subspace fast enough and he didn’t know how a new Dom would react—

The heavy handed backslap caught him completely by surprise, the explosion of pain across his right cheek sending him stumbling to his knees. Before he could react, his hair was grabbed roughly and his head yanked back. Jane bared his teeth in a half-defiant, half-pained grimace. Fingers were forced into his mouth, exploring roughly and digging in with a thumb beneath his chin to act as a rein to guide him where the Dom wanted him to go. He bit reflexively, anger and frustration burning through his veins along with the adrenaline high, and the fingers tightened, dragging him down to the floor by the jaw.

With his hands pinned behind his back, he hit the ground with his shoulders and the side of his head, with his knees propping his hips up in the air. The fingers were removed from his mouth and the heavy warning weight of a boot settled over his neck to pin him in place.

“Mouthy little bitch, aren’t you?” Damon said, as calmly as if he were asking for the time. “I can only imagine what you’re like without someone to keep you in line. As your first offense, I’ll go easy on you. Because, see, I know you’re only testing me to see if I’ll Dom you properly. But don’t worry, I don’t think you’ll have any complaints. Now, let’s start out by seeing how clean you can get my boots, and then we’ll get the flogger for your punishment. We’ll start with twenty, shall we?”

By the end of the session, Jane was blissed out of his head and limp as a wrung out rag. He barely moved his watery muscles during the aftercare, only spreading his legs or rolling over when prompted. He didn’t bother holding in his grimaces and hisses of pain as his reddened weals stretched or met the floor. Damon was a bit rougher than Jared and pushed Jane to his limits, but never past them, and while Jane’s body was sorer than he could remember it being in months, his mind was also blissfully blank and empty like it hadn’t been in ages.

Damon had been right; he certainly had no complaints whatsoever.

His cheek bloomed deep red later—and he was soon grateful for his obsessive habit of keeping fully covered from neck to wrists and ankles when he saw the state of his body—and when he saw the team later he had to deal with concerned questions followed by gentle ribbing when he brushed them off, but it was well worth it.

In fact, a week and a half later, when he called for another appointment, he asked after Damon and the woman on the other end of the line chuckled, saying that Damon had been asking after him, as well. The session that followed was even better than the first, and he was so deep into subspace that he barely registered that they had been joined by a cameraman partway in, much less cared. When he had signed the club’s contract, he had indicated that he didn’t mind filming for advertising purposes, as long as his face couldn’t be seen.

That session also marked the third time since he had entered the BDSM scene that he fell so deeply into subspace that he didn’t register when his body was seriously injured during play. While he had been kneeling on the floor, legs spread wide and shoulders on the floor to present his greedy hole to the Dom as much as possible, he had strained his right shoulder trying to shove himself onto Damon’s thick cock. Then, later, his leg had slipped on the swing when Damon had dragged him forward too roughly and a metal loop of the chain had left a deep scratch up his calf.

During aftercare, when it became clear just how many unintentional injuries had been inflicted, Damon had apologized profusely, much to Jane’s amusement. The next day he’d had to pass it off as a sport’s injury to the team, who were beginning to look slightly dubious at his repeated excuses. They jumped to conclusions, of course; they _were_ detectives, after all and were conditioned to be suspicious in nature.

“You don’t play sports,” Cho said flatly. “You barely move from that couch all day.”

“Not true! I get up for tea and lunch.”

“Did somebody mug you? Somebody mugged you, didn’t they?” Rigsby said, his amusement abruptly giving way to indignation when he finally reached the conclusion that his other team members had; that Jane had, in fact, been _attacked_. “Where? When?”

“I wasn’t _mugged_ , trust me.” Jane denied, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“It’s nothing serious, is it, Jane?” Van Pelt asked, and in her dismayed eyes he saw the question everyone was thinking. _Red John?_

He sobered, looking at his team—his _friends_ —that had stood by him for so long through the hellish road that Red John had sent him on. “No, it’s not, I promise. Really, I do. You guys have been with me since the beginning, I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

“Not without a reason, anyway, no matter how stupid,” Cho muttered. Some of the tension broke.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hiding a rough lover,” Lisbon mused, trying to play it cool but keeping her eyes sharp on his face. He let a ghost of the satisfaction he felt after a thorough session drift across his face and saw her eyes widen.

“Except that Jane spends all of his time here,” Rigsby pointed out. “We’d notice.” The others didn’t look so sure, noticing that Jane wasn’t denying anything anymore. He just sat back with a bland smile on his face.

“As entertaining as it is watching try to plumb the undiscovered depths of my mysterious existence, don’t we have a case to get back to?” Jane pointed out. They were still working on Peter Johnstead’s case. Despite Jane managing to peg the killer as male, left-handed, over six feet tall, and as domineering in personality as body, the physical evidence of the case was slowing them down considerably.

“Right, where are we on talking to Johnstead’s enemies? And his wife?” Lisbon asked, the reminder from _Jane_ of all people jolting her mind back to work.

“Practically everyone he knew was his enemy, just like we’d heard,” Van Pelt said, going back to her desk to pick up a few files. “We’ve been going through motive and opportunity, which leaves us with five people who had a clear shot. But there’s nothing to say that any of the others could’ve hired someone to take him out.”

“Focus on the five, see if we can narrow them down any further. Rigsby, start checking the finances of everyone else; see if there’s any mysterious payments that could be a hired thug. The wife?”

“Cho and I have talked to her a few times now,” Jane said. “She seems completely sincere. She might have hated living in a loveless marriage with a man who preferred to have sex with a dominatrix, but not enough to want him dead.”

“Yeah, that bit about the dominatrix is what’s making Bertram breathe down my neck. The media’s having a field day with it. Where the hell are we on forensics?”

“They said they’d get it to us by the end of the day,” Cho stated.

“Well, see if you can go breathe down _their_ necks for a while. Some hard evidence would be really useful in figuring out what we’re dealing with here.” Lisbon paused. When the team continued to stare at her, she flapped a hand and snapped, “Well, what are you waiting for? Go!”

They went.

An hour before closing time, when their pace had slowed to frustrated plodding as it seemed like yet another day would pass without a break in the Johnstead case, Cho burst into the office with a promisingly thick file in his hand.

“Forensics just got in,” he said, and everyone crowded eagerly around the large table in front of the whiteboard covered with case notes. Close-up photos of the physical evidence that had been taken were already up on the board and Lisbon was ready with a dry erase marker to add the lab results to each one.

“The fibers caught in Johnstead’s necklace were a leather/wool blend found in many applications, including most high-end gloves,” Cho read, glancing up from the report.

“The killer wore leather gloves when he strangled Johnstead,” Lisbon said with an air of impatience. “We probably could’ve guessed that for ourselves.” She wrote it anyway under the close-up of the gold necklace the victim had worn.

Cho read on. “The gum wrapper next to the body had gum with Johnstead’s saliva on it. Probably just fell out of his pocket. The hair on the victim’s jacket belongs to his wife, no real surprise there. The lipstick mark had trace DNA from saliva that didn’t match anyone in the system.”

“Most likely Angela, his Mistress,” Jane said.

“We’ll get a DNA sample from her to be sure,” Lisbon said, finishing writing next to a photo of Johnstead’s cheek, which was crowded next to a photo of the circular bruise on the small of Johnstead’s back, where the killer had most likely kneeled on him to pin him down while the killer strangled him.

“This is interesting,” Cho said, flipping to the next page. “The tobacco ash Jane spotted where he realized the killer must have been waiting to watch Johnstead leave the club is from a special kind of tobacco. There were bits of dried shag tobacco in it, which means they were probably—”

“Hand-rolled cigarettes,” Jane finished, feeling his body go cold as realization ripped through him. Hearing his change in tone, his team members turned to him.

“Jane? What’s the matter?” Lisbon asked, alarm lurking beneath her voice when she saw that he didn’t wear his usual expression of triumph. Rather, his face was pale and slightly sick looking.

“I… no, it doesn’t make sense,” Jane muttered, mind racing. _Damon?_ But why? There was no connection between the two, was there?

“ _Jane_ ,” Lisbon said insistently, breaking through his thoughts. “What is it?”

“I’ve recently… met someone who smokes hand-rolled shag tobacco. Well, I’ve never seen him do it, but it’s a very distinctive smell and he reeks of it.”

“Who is he? Could he have any connection to the case?”

Jane hesitated, looking doubtful. “I don’t see how he could, but he _does_ work at the Dionysus Club,” he admitted, internally wincing at where this line of questioning would inevitably lead. It might be horribly awkward, but if it could be relevant to solving the case then he had no intentions of hiding what he knew.

“Well, who is he?” Lisbon asked impatiently, already flipping through files to find the one that listed employees of the Dionysus Club. Back at Van Pelt’s desk, her computer dinged to alert her to a new message received pertaining to the ongoing investigation and she got up to check it.

This time Jane did wince. “I don’t actually know his name. He’s a Dom that goes by the name of Damon. I’ve never seen him, but he’s just over six feet tall, heavy and muscular, but not like a body builder. More like an athlete. A slight gap in his front teeth that whistles when he breathes sometimes. No accent or identifying scars that I noticed.”

They stared at him. “Jane,” Lisbon said slowly, “How exactly do you know this guy?” Before Jane could answer, Van Pelt gasped and fumbled with her mouse, clicking frantically at something on the screen.

“Oh my _God_!” She blurted, her face draining of color before she turned to stare directly at Jane. When she met his eyes, she abruptly flushed so quickly that he thought she would pass out.

“Grace? What is it?” Rigsby said urgently, jumping to her side. The rest of the team followed, though Jane hung back, a sinking feeling in his gut. On her screen was an opened video file, the video paused on a blur of movement.

“I-I… uh, don’t know,” she stuttered, trying to regain her composure. “I got an e-mail and all it had was a video. I don’t know what…”

Rigsby pressed play and the image immediately resolved into a tanned, compactly muscled figure writhing beneath a larger, densely muscled man on a narrow bench. The dark, plush carpet and style of the room along with the discipline equipment strewn around the floor made it recognizable as the Dionysus Club. The camera focused on where the larger man—Damon, Jane realized with sick resignation—was steadily pumping in and out of the smaller man’s—Jane’s—ass before zooming out when Damon abruptly pulled out and hitched Jane’s hips higher while Jane mewled at the loss. He grasped both of Jane’s lusciously round cheeks and squeezed them tightly, causing Jane to whine.

“Oh yeah, look at that greedy hole,” Damon grated, “begging for more of my thick cock. You want some more? Huh? Want some more of my cock?” He stuck two fingers into Jane’s weakly grasping hole and scissored them before pulling out and hooking both thumbs in the reddened, slick rim of muscle and pulling slightly for the camera to catch a glimpse of Jane’s shiny pink interior and the tight, hairless balls and weeping cock swaying below.

“Yes, sir! More, more,” Jane cried out on the video, sounding drugged as his words slurred with pleasure. Jane then squealed beneath him when Damon abruptly flipped him over and pulled him into his lap as if he were nothing more than a doll. He yanked Jane up into a seated position straddling Damon’s hips and plunged back into his hole, causing Jane to shout with relief that turned into throaty moans of pleasure. Jane wrapped his arms around Damon’s shoulders, fingers digging into the thick muscles there while he encouraged Damon’s mouth to lavish attention on his neck above the collar or his stiff, red nipples while Jane swayed and rolled his hips drunkenly, riding Damon’s cock.

Damon’s back faced the camera, but it was here that Jane’s face was clearly seen, his lips swollen and spit-slick and his thick golden hair tousled, but still distinctive and instantly recognizable despite the blindfold. The rest of the team seemed to freeze at the visual, not having connected the voice of the mewling, begging creature on the screen with the cool, svelte, perpetually unruffled consultant beside them. Jane didn’t blame them; he had been so deep in subspace that he hardly recognized himself. It was interesting, in some distantly clinical way, to see just how radically different he acted with the emotional release subspace provided him. He realized that his fists were clenched so tightly that his nails were digging into his palms.

“Stop it,” he said, his voice unexpectedly loud against the tinny cries and grunts of pleasure from the computer. “Stop the video.” Rigsby hurried to obey and it seemed like a vacuum opened up in the silence that followed. Jane took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released it. “Well,” he said evenly, “I could probably sue them; the videos aren’t supposed to show my face.”

“Jane, what the _hell_ —” Lisbon rounded on him, face pale and voice strained with the effort of keeping her voice even and quiet. “You knew about this?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t know it would be sent here,” he retorted defensively. He tried to calm himself down. “But I knew about the videos, yes. When I signed the client contract with the Club, I said they were allowed to videotape sessions for promotion or sale as long as my face wasn’t visible.”

“ _Contract_ —” Lisbon’s voice rose to a squeak and she stopped, holding a hand up. “Wait. Wait, I’m confused. I think you need to start from the beginning, Jane.”

Jane sighed and leaned his bum against Cho’s desk, wincing at the soreness that encompassed his entire ass. He saw his team member’s eyes sharpen in comprehension and a few of them glanced at the computer, where he was happily getting his ass reamed out for the world to see. He sighed again.

“OK, fine, I was getting to this anyway,” he said, refusing to act embarrassed or ashamed, even if a part of him definitely _was_. “I’ve been going to the Dionysus Club for almost three years now. A couple of weeks ago—the day after we went there for the first time, in fact—I scheduled an ‘emergency’ appointment. My regular Dom wasn’t able to make it, so they assigned me a new one. _That_ is Damon.” He pointed to the man fucking him on the screen.

“I requested him—and he requested me—for my next session, which was yesterday. That’s when this video was made.”

“ _He_ requested _you_?” Lisbon said, her eyes sharp as she sifted through the information he was giving her. “And he’s the one you said smokes hand-rolled tobacco? Is there a chance he knows you’re a part of Johnstead’s murder investigation?” He admired her ability to distance herself in order to focus on the case, even though he knew that she was just pushing her emotional response back to deal with later. He suspected the others were doing the same. Except for maybe Cho, who looked as emotionless and bland as ever.

“I guess. A couple of people recognized me when we were there, word might’ve gotten around. But Diana’s usually good about keeping stuff like that quiet, especially with a double whammy like the police snooping around asking questions _and_ a client showing up with them.”

“So if Damon _is_ involved with Johnstead’s death, he might be…” she fumbled for her words, trying to find reasonably discreet ones to describe the kinky fuck fest on Van Pelt’s screen. “…Trying to get close to you for reasons other than… uh, the obvious.”

“The obvious” being the fact that Jane was a wanton, greedy slut for Damon’s cock and obviously a fairly fantastic fuck besides, Jane reflected wryly. “Maybe,” he agreed out loud, feeling a twist in his gut at the idea that he had been so close to—had _trusted_ —someone who was a possible murderer.

“And the video? Why was it sent here?” Van Pelt asked. Jane shrugged.

“I have no idea, but I bet it’s someone else’s doing. Filming is approved by Diana and she wouldn’t let my face be filmed if she could help it. Blackmail doesn’t make sense, since I don’t care about things like that.”

“Just another question in a long list that we now need to ask Ms. Diana Green. We’ll hold off on questioning Damon until we finish with her.”

“It’s just past 4:30,” Jane noted. “She has a session with a prominent member of the state government until 5:30 every Thursday. If you want to talk to her today, her shift ends at 6:00.”

“Alright, fine,” Lisbon said, looking annoyed. He knew she couldn’t care less about interrupting a spanking session with a government official, but that would be exactly the sort of thing that would make Bertram blow his stack. “We’ll wait a half hour. Finish going through the forensics report and start getting our questions together.”

The team jumped to do her bidding, all of them studiously ignoring the elephant in the room while failing to meet Jane’s eyes for more than a split second at a time. The room was silent except for the rustle of paper and the squeak of dry erase marker. Jane sat back with his cup of tea and tried to recall any more information he might have about Damon and tried to see how he might fit in with the entire Johnstead business. He ignored the awkward tension in the room. They would all get over the shock of it eventually.

He was drawn from his thoughts by Van Pelt approaching his couch and sitting next to him. “I’m sorry about the way I reacted, when I first saw the video,” she said, her voice soft, but Jane could feel the attention in the silent room zero in on them. “I hope you don’t think… I mean, I don’t think of you any differently.”

“Yes, you do,” Jane said, not unkindly. “It’s understandable; it must have been a shock.”

“You’ve got to admit, you don’t act like a Sub by any means,” Cho said bluntly from his desk, which was closest to Jane’s couch.

“Really? I would think that I would fit the perfect profile for a Sub,” Jane said thoughtfully.

“What makes you say that?” Cho rejoined. Jane gave him an amused look before glancing at the other agents in the room, who were busily pretending like they weren’t listening in.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Jane said with a faint smile. He raised his voice a touch. “But only because I know that no one else can hear me and you guys won’t be talking about it behind my back later.” He could see Rigsby’s shoulders twitch guiltily and couldn’t help a grin crossing his face.

“Let’s see,” he said thoughtfully, leaning back into the couch and crossing his legs. “My wife and daughter, whom I loved very much, were murdered in a horribly tragic and traumatizing way at the hands of a psychopath who wanted to punish me for acting like I knew him. I refused all psychological treatment or discussion of the event. As you may remember, the stress and emotional build up caused me to explode more than a few times when I first joined your team.”

Cho nodded, face grim. “Then, three years ago, I discovered a means of relieving that stress that allowed my mind to connect to my body in such a way that I was able to escape my own mind in a relatively painless, non-damaging way.”

“Painless? Non-damaging?” Van Pelt looked doubtful.

“The pain of the body—at least, this kind of pain—is nothing compared to the pain my heart and mind feels every moment of every day. And out of the countless ways to distract myself from that pain, I find that having someone else helping me to get out of my own head is probably the least damaging to my body.” At the expression on her face, he gave a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I’m fully aware that psychiatrists would have a field day with me; _that’s_ hardly a surprise, is it? Regardless, I’ve found that letting someone else take over for a while is the most relief I can get these days.”

“I didn’t realize you were… I mean, that you would want a _man_ to ‘take over,’” Van Pelt said delicately.

Jane sighed. “I loved my wife very much. I still do. I haven’t been able to even think about becoming that close to another woman in a very long time. At least, not with Red John…” He shrugged. “Besides, I’ve always been attracted to both genders, even if I favored women, but when it comes to submission, I respond to men best. Obviously,” he added wryly with a glance at Van Pelt’s computer. “But the sex is secondary to the emotional release it gives me, no matter what it looks like on the video.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the abrupt end, of course. Liked my writing? You might like my Tumblr. rosyourboat.tumblr.com


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